What does "Vineland" mean to you?

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

What does "Vineland" mean to Me?

Ever since 1979, when I pulled a 'stripped' copy of 'The Crying of Lot 49' from 
the waste bin of Campus Text Book Exchange, Berkeley CA, I felt a sense of being 
haunted. You see, to a certain limited extent I've been Pynchon's Foley Walker, 
walking down paths the author walked down, finding my self no more than 
2 steps away from the poor man I've been Stencilizing all these years. While 
the Master Narrative I am now extemporizing might be supplanted by some more 
rigorous approaches, as of this moment, gazing into various mirrors that, in 
spite of predictable distorting refractive effects provide a somewhat obscured 
view, we can now display the only obvious answer.

Family History.  

Prarie Wheeler seeing her mother undone by film via Movieola, 
just as Scarsdale Vibe is done in by that foley walker or we are left 
stranded at the Orphuem in LA, hoping to revive the spirits one more 
time, watching the film break. My daddie, my doggie and me. Oedipa 
looks at the holdings that got picked up by some guy named Pierce,
big in the world of stocks and lots. We hear stories about Tyrone's 
weird ancestors, or stories about old families in the New World of 
Mason & Dixon.


I know that by this point I'm beginning to sound like Professor Irwin Corey on 
three 16 oz. Mocha-Javas from Peet's on Vine, down in the Gourmet Ghetto, 
or Tiny Doctor Tim slouched on a futon, babbling into a  SM-57, but if I do, 
then my work is done.

There's all sorts of different ways the Pynchon Family History [folding in a 
surreal history of the United States with a little Stan Freberg on the side] 
manages to creep in and overwhelm all his books, but Occam's razor'll 
cut it so why not?.

My problem, all along---being right proper misdirected mind you---was looking at 
Pynchon as an Occultist, naturally assuming that someone who turned me on to 
the Occult was along for the ride. And in some ways he is and in some way he's 
not. The issue, clearly, is one of inclusion---what's left in, what's left out.

That has much to do with the central heresy of William Pynchon. His heresy is 
considered one of the founding planks of Unitarianism---you know, like it's all 
one man, dig? That event in and around 1650 made Pynchon & Co. head for 
the woods, being the first Hippies to run for the hills, the first Hippie 
Diaspora in the good ole' pre-USA USA. You could look it up. It's a common 
feature in the older history books, don't you know? 

My Mom was right in the center of the best known of those Utopia/Hippie 
Uprisings/Diasporas. As was OurBelovedAuthor. Those that know, know. And those 
that know Garberville/Redway/Aptos/Trinidad/Santa Cruz/Berkeley and environs 
know that Thomas Ruggles Pynchon [b. '37 so's we don't confuse him with the 
other Thomas Ruggles Pynchons] Knows the neighborhood. Those kinda places 
that are mentioned on the grapevine as havin' the stuff, dig? And besides, 
there's John Ross' "Murdered by Capitalism" in the mix.

Ah, but I'm misdirecting you again. 

Seriously, look at the history of the Pynchon heresy.

As a building block of greater heresies [Mad Dog Bertie comes to mind], turning 
Jesus back into the sort of teacher Burton L. Mack points to is a major shift in 
consciousness. At the same time, this is a Utopian, visionary impulse, seeing 
an essential unity in all things, thus the interconnectedness. Observed at in 
that light, the Chums flight towards Grace looks inevitable, unavoidable.